5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending April 26, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel.

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The Week Ending April 26

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Microsoft, which briefly joined the club of firms whose market capitalization reached the $1 trillion mark.

Also making the list this week was Slalom Consulting, which said it successfully thwarted the hacking attacks that hit other global systems integrators and IT consulting companies. IoT startups VDOO and Sight Machine made the list for successful financing rounds, as did PTC for making a savvy acquisition in the "smart manufacturing" area. And a couple of key sales management hires at Cradlepoint will provide that company's channel partners with more IoT and 5G opportunities.

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Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's Five Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Microsoft Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap, Becomes Most Valuable U.S. Company

Microsoft made headlines this week when its market capitalization – the total value of its outstanding shares – reached the $1 trillion mark for the first time when its stock price hit $130.51 on Thursday.

The market cap settled back to $990.87 billion by the end of the day. But that was still good enough to make Microsoft the most valuable publicly traded U.S. company.

Apple and Amazon.com both reached $1 trillion market caps last year – Apple in August and Amazon in September. As of Thursday, Apple's market cap was $967.95 billion while Amazon's was $936.01 billion.

Slalom Consulting Thwarts Phishing Campaign That Led To Wipro Breach

Hacker attacks that led to the Wipro security breach have topped the headlines over the last two weeks. But Slalom Consulting appears to be the first IT service provider targeted in the attacks to have successfully prevented the hackers from breaching the company's systems.

Slalom, No. 37 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, says it detected and prevented phishing attack activity between March 4 and March 19 through a combination of advanced security monitoring, security awareness and training, and threat intelligence automation. It verified the thwarted attack through internal forensics and the support of threat intelligence partners.

Slalom attributed its success to its around-the-clock Security Operations Center, which provided the advanced security monitoring.

PTC Buys Factora To Boost Industry 4.0 Expertise

PTC has taken a big step to expand its clout in the realm of "smart manufacturing," acquiring a systems integration services company with deep expertise in "Industry 4.0" – the ability to optimize a factory environment and drive productivity gains through connected assets, augmented service procedures and predictive analytics.

Smart manufacturing is the fastest growing sub-segment of PTC's industrial IoT business, according to the company.

The acquisition, reported by CRN this week, will allow PTC to better serve its customers and its channel partners who are driving growth in the smart manufacturing arena.

IoT Startups Sight Machine, VDOO Raise Venture Funding To Fuel Growth

Speaking of IoT, two startups in the Internet of Things realm win kudos for raising impressive amounts of financing that will help each accelerate their product development and expand sales efforts – including through the channel.

VDOO, developer of an end-to-end IoT device security platform, raised $32 million in Series B funding that the Tel Aviv-based company will use to develop new features for its products and expand its sales and marketing operations. The latter includes plans to build partnerships with more distributors and systems integrators.

Industrial IoT tech developer Sight Machine raised $29.4 million in Series C funding, some of which will be applied to expanded sales and marketing operations, including working with systems integrators, cloud service providers and strategic consulting partners. The company's software is used to collect data from hundreds of sources around a manufacturing plant for real-time analysis and visualization.

Cradlepoint's New Hires Drive 5G, IoT Opportunities For Channel Partners

Cradlepoint, a provider of cloud-delivered LTE network products, wins applause this week for accelerating its partner-first focus by taking steps to help solution providers capitalize on next-generation wireless opportunities, including bringing on new sales and channel veteran executives to push 5G and Internet of Things opportunities through the channel.

To lead its channel sales offensive the company has hired Mark Pugerude as its new chief sales officer and Eric Purcell as the company’s senior vice president of global partner sales and alliances.

As part of its "pathway to 5G" strategy, Cradlepoint this week unveiled a new series of Private LTE solutions based on its NetCloud service and recently introduced Gigabit LTE edge routers. In addition to providing a platform for wireless networks, the Private LTE series offers partners a solution for emerging IoT use cases.